ABSTRACT
Although we are now both working in universities in the UK, Richard researching his PhD, for which the walk at the centre of this article is a thread, and Sue as a research fellow, we first worked together with what became a group of friends in the late 1990’s in the context of Local Agenda 211 and continue to work, apart and together, mostly on projects facilitating change for a more sustainable future by supporting community resilience (Hopkins, 2011). In this chapter we write about walking together, including a walk undertaken in early summer 2012 from Stroud in Gloucestershire to Derby. Richard and Sue first walked together in 2009, producing drawings and writing. This marked a change in our research relationship, and a shift in Sue’s research practice. Walking had been part of Richard’s practice since 2002, whereas Sue had become increasingly estranged from walking as a result of a progressive illness that had robbed her of the ability to walk anything other than very short distances. For Sue, the 2009 walk taken with Richard from Arlingham towards the River Severn became the first in a number of walks challenging the assumption that walking was a bipedal activity and reclaiming the act of walking as a disabled person.
